


moons could change your mind

by syllic



Category: Big Eden (2000)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Christmas Eve, First Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-12 14:26:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16874568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syllic/pseuds/syllic
Summary: The snow crunched under his feet, and the moon filtered through the trees, cold and beautiful. Henry breathed in the familiar smell of the frozen woods and hiked his way up to Pike’s truck.





	moons could change your mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shopfront](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/gifts).



> shopfront, you said you enjoyed magical fusions, and it suddenly struck me that small mountain towns would be the perfect place for small magical communities to reside. Happy Yuletide!

“Henry, when is that boy of yours going to get here with that duck?”

Henry looked up from where he was working on a hand-painted Christmas card for Mrs. Thayer—his last of the evening, a view of the lake from her back window, into which Henry hoped he had painted the gratitude and warmth he felt for Esther’s particular brand of attentiveness: ever-so-stifling sometimes, but admirably boundless.

“You think you might stop calling either of us ‘boys’ sometime before we reach retirement age?” he asked.

“Don’t expect so,” said Sampa, continuing to sharpen the knife that he was preparing in expectation of Pike’s arrival.

The back door gave a familiar squeak as it opened, and Henry said, “There you go. Apparently your grumpiness has summoning powers!”

Sampa wagged the knife warningly at him, and Henry stood up to go help Pike with the food.

“Hi,” he said, rolling up onto the balls of his feet to kiss Pike as he came through the door.

His face was cold from the wind, and there were a few flakes of snow in his dark hair. Pike kissed him back, thoughtful and slow, holding a large Dutch oven awkwardly out to the side so that Henry could get in close.

“Sampa’s in the kitchen. Watch out; I think he’s been imagining the duck all day, and he might carve your arm if you’re not careful.”

“Frances is in the truck,” Pike answered. “And there’s a pie dish and a wooden box, could you get them both?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Henry, making his way outside.

The snow crunched under his feet, and the moon filtered through the trees, cold and beautiful. Henry breathed in the familiar smell of the frozen woods and hiked his way up to Pike’s truck.

“Hey, girl,” he said, and Frances turned in the seat to look at him obediently. “Come on down, get in the house.”

She pressed her wet nose against Henry’s face as she passed, padding swiftly through the snow toward the cabin. Henry leaned into the cab to get the pie—more of a tart, it looked like, with a set of delicately arranged apple slices spiraling outward and smelling of rich spice. There was a small wooden box next to the dish, as Pike had said, and Henry grabbed them both, bumping the truck door shut with his hip.

When he came back into the kitchen Sampa was levitating boxes out of the crawl space above the living room, and Pike was opening them as they landed on the coffee table.

“Do you think that’s it, Mr. Dexter?” asked Sampa.

“Uh,” said Pike, looking at Henry nervously, “These all look like hand-carved ornaments, sir. I don’t know if it’s all of them.”

“Well, it certainly won’t be all of them, Mr. Dexter. I’ve been carving these things non-stop for forty years. But do you think we have enough for this year’s tree?”

Pike looked uncertainly at the aforementioned tree, then back at Henry, and Henry smiled encouragingly, nodding.

“Yes sir,” said Pike. “I think so.”

“Good man, Mr. Dexter,” said Sampa, shutting the crawl space hatch and walking over to stand next to Pike.

He patted him on the arm as they both looked in the boxes, and Henry left them to it, warmed by the sight of the two of them pulling out the newspaper-wrapped ornaments and laying them out by the tree. One of the few clear memories he had of his grandma was of her threatening to vanish the ornaments as fast as Sampa could carve them if he didn’t stop making new ones every year, but Henry thought that in the end the threat had probably had the opposite of the intended effect.

“Hey Pike? Does this need to go in the oven?” he asked, when he caught sight of the huge cast-iron dish on the counter.

“Yes, at 425, with the lid off. I’ll come help,” Pike answered, sounding a little overwhelmed, and Henry laughed as he heard him scurrying back into the kitchen.

“You don’t have to be nervous around him,” he whispered, turning his mouth up toward Pike’s ear.

Pike shivered, and Henry snuck a hand under his thick flannel shirt and caressed the soft, warm skin at the small of his back.

“I’m not nervous,” said Pike. “I just want him to like me.”

“He _does_ like you,” said Henry. He watched as Pike turned the oven on and lifted the lid on the cast-iron dish to examine the contents. “Sometimes I think he likes you much more than his cooking-impaired grandson.”

Pike smiled ever so slightly, eyes crinkling around the edges. He hadn’t liked it when Henry complimented his cooking, at first, but Henry was waging a slow campaign to make him realize how remarkable his food was—how remarkable _he_ was—by means of gentle, insistent repetition.

Henry watched as Pike got a spoon from the drawer and basted the duck with some of the juices from the dish.

“Will it take long?”

Pike shook his head. “I put a warming charm on it. I just want the skin to crisp a bit more.”

“What’s in these?” Henry asked, gesturing to the duck and the pie.

Pike knew exactly what he meant; he pointed to small bundles of cheesecloth that were placed carefully around the duck, steeped in the juices.

“Rosemary and sage,” he said, “For health and wisdom in the New Year. They’re traditionally placed at the entrance to the home, but… I’m experimenting.”

“Mmh,” said Henry, continuing to rub his fingers in small circles at Pike’s lower back. “And the pie?”

“Apple,” Pike answered.

“Just apple?” asked Henry, surprised.

Pike ducked his head, and Henry bent with him, catching the tell-tale flush that appeared near Pike’s ears when he was embarrassed. Henry waited him out, knowing not to push.

“And apple blossoms,” said Pike, finally, pointing to a few delicate flowers pressed between the apple slices, which Henry hadn’t noticed before.

“Apple blossoms for…?”

“For love,” Pike mumbled. “For encouraging and preserving love.”

Henry smiled at him; Pike wouldn’t want a fuss, but Henry willed him to look at his expression and see the pleasure and joy and the sheer admiration he felt for Pike, for his steady, skilled hands and the way he cooked intention into every dish. Pike met his eyes for a moment, quirking his lips again, and moved to put the duck in the oven.

“Boys!” called Sampa. “Come put these ornaments on the tree so we can eat as soon as that delicious duck is ready! Henry, if Pike needs to attend to the cooking, you leave him to it. You can come help with the tree; no one wants to eat a burned dinner!”

Henry rolled his eyes slightly. “See?” he asked Pike.

He headed back into the living room, where Sampa was ready to hand him ornaments to place on the large tree that the Stewarts had brought them after Thanksgiving. Henry worked his way from the bottom up, and when it got slightly too far for him to reach, he let Sampa levitate the lighter ornaments onto the top.

Pike came in while they were working, carrying three glasses of what looked like eggnog. He handed one to Henry, one to Sampa, and put the third down on the coffee table.

“Did you put the wooden box in the kitchen?” he asked.

Henry shook his head. “Over on the mantle.”

Pike walked over, pulling the lid off the wooden box and returning to where Sampa and Henry were standing by the tree.

“Wheeler made this for us,” he said, almost shyly.

As he tilted the box Henry caught sight of an intricate star worked in paper-thin metal: it looked less like an ornament and more like a subtle trick of the light, with its series of gleaming strands woven into fine, curving shapes.

“Well, isn’t that something,” said Sampa, reaching into the nest of wood chips that was cradling the star within the box.

He pointed at what looked like a complex set of loops leading to the star’s top, and said, “I believe that’s the glyph for kin.” And then, pointing at each of the points in turn, “Prosperity. Health. Home. And I believe this last one may signify new beginnings.”

Henry took the ornament carefully from Sampa’s hands, remembering his first meeting with Wheeler a few months ago. He had told Henry that beauty was worth pursuing in all forms; he had known, from Pike, that Henry was an artist, and the moment had been Henry’s first encounter with how effortlessly giving Pike was, day to day. He’d been making a place for Henry in Big Eden when Henry wasn’t even there, simply because he could. 

The day felt like an eternity ago—a time when he’d thought he’d only be home a few days was a day from a different life.

“This is incredible,” he said, looking at the star and trying to commit the way the light played across it to memory. He held his hands out to Pike. “Would you do the honors?”

Pike pulled his wand from the back pocket of his jeans, and with a flick of his wrist he sent the star sailing toward the ceiling, finding a place for it at the top of the tree’s branches.

“Merry Christmas, boys,” said Sampa, putting a hand on each of their shoulders and looking at the decorated tree. There was a quiet, pleasant solemnity to the moment, before Sampa said, “Pike, you think we can maybe help that duck along?” 

He waved his wand in the direction of the kitchen and started making his way toward the oven even as he was asking.

“Oh god, he’s going to light my duck on fire,” Pike muttered.

Henry tucked a shoulder into the space beneath Pike’s arm, turning so that he was looking up at him.

“Probably,” he said. “But kiss me before you go stop him.”

And Pike, who wasn’t one to let anyone interfere with his cooking, leaned down to kiss him and pretended he had nowhere else to be.


End file.
